From Australia with concern

[Killforpeace]

Fellow comrades,

I've been following the forums for a little while but only just decided to join and contribute, purely because I feel the situation in Australia is progressively getting worse and worse. Are there many others from Australia around here? I've only just started to follow politics closely, read more and to be honest open up to far left thought although I have always been highly opposed of capitalism. To other Australians or anyone who follows it, am I right to say we are heading further right and more conservative as the years go by, as the rich get richer, as the mining companies have more and more control or is that just my pessimistic view on the country?

ps, name is after the fugs song, I'm highly against imposing peace through bombs.

[Sentinel]

Welcome to Revleft. We used to have a lot of Australian members in the past, but I think it's a little fewer nowadays.

I visited your country in 2006 and attended the G20 protests in Melbourne together with people who used to post here.

Ah sweet memories..

[thefinalmarch]

Yeah, this country's pretty much going down the shitter.

Welcome from Melbourne

[TheGodlessUtopian]

Welcome, haven't been myself but I have heard some bad things.

[a rebel]

I think the same is happening in the US I think. I thought we were a conservative shit hole before but.....

[eric922]

I think the same is happening in the US I think. I thought we were a conservative shit hole before but.....
Yeah, we've gotten really bad since the Regan administration. At least in the days of the New Deal coalition the democratic party pretended to be on the side of the working class and made a few reforms to help them, but now they've became the party of the right and I don't know how to describe the republicans aside from bat-shit insane.

Not saying the democrats were even really good, just that things have gotten a lot worse in the past 3 decades.

[Comrade Hill]

I'm afraid it's not just you guys in Australia my friend, the whole entire world seems to be making a rapid shift to a dictatorship by the corporate class.

[Ned Kelly]

Comradely greetings from Melbourne.

[Battlecat]

Salutations from Melbourne, comrade

[RichardAWilson]

The Australian Labor Party has abandoned Australia's working class.

The Labor Party has been triangulating the right-wingers, much like Clinton triangulated Gingrich and Blair triangulated the Tories.

Now, instead of being influenced by the trade unions and the middle class, Australia's Labor Party, like the New Democrats and Britain's New Labor, have capitulated to high-finance (I.e. Bankers, Speculators and Hedge Fund Managers).

A Workingman's Labor Party would never be headed by a man that brags about having slashed public service jobs during his tenure as an adviser to Queensland.

With Labor being center-right on the traditional spectrum, the Green Party is Australia's last remaining center-left party and even they've been willing to sacrifice progress in the name of cooperation with Labor.

[thefinalmarch]

The Australian Labor Party has abandoned Australia's working class.
Of course this all implies that the bourgeois ALP was ever a working class party to begin with.

[o well this is ok I guess]

Don't worry man, all our situations are getting worse and worse.

[Killforpeace]

eh,

“From this time forward
I pledge my loyalty to Australia and its people,
whose democratic beliefs I share,
whose rights and liberties I respect, and
whose laws I will uphold and obey.”

is what Social Inclusion Minister Tanya Plibersek is saying all children should now have to pledge at school.

Can't post links but can be found on sbs website

[thefinalmarch]

eh,

“From this time forward
I pledge my loyalty to Australia and its people,
whose democratic beliefs I share,
whose rights and liberties I respect, and
whose laws I will uphold and obey.”

is what Social Inclusion Minister Tanya Plibersek is saying all children should now have to pledge at school.

Can't post links but can be found on sbs website
Well shit, talk about crypto-fascist. Also I never even knew we had a "social inclusion" minister. What the hell?

[Killforpeace]

Well shit, talk about crypto-fascist. Also I never even knew we had a "social inclusion" minister. What the hell?

It's the same pledge that new citizens have to make. I can't see anything getting better in Australia for quite sometime, the richer we become, the more conservative we seem to get.

[Yazman]

I'm from Australia. I honestly feel the situation here is worse than in the US politically, simply because of how many more people are totally apathetic or straightup reactionary and right-wing, percentage-wise. Seems like there's a lot more of them, and furthermore because of the way our political system is set up it's much easier for the ruling class to grab more power (especially due to the constitutional lack of rights). Could probably talk on this for ages, so I'll cut it short.

Welcome to Revleft!

[chebol]

Greetings from deepest, darkest Sydney...

[#FF0000]

So can someone explain to me why right-wing Australian press/Australians want to be America so badly

[Yazman]

So can someone explain to me why right-wing Australian press/Australians want to be America so badly

Because in Australian politics the idea that we just let a foreign power dominate our society, culture, and politics has never actually been challenged in the mainstream. It was the British once upon a time, and since WW2 (and especially since the 60s) it's been the USA. I am not nationalist in any way - quite the opposite actually - but that's how it is. The political culture is one of welcoming imperialism and foreign dominance.

As far as Australia's relationship with the US, if you just look at mainstream political rhetoric or the media, you'd never notice this, but in Australian culture and the population in general there's always been a love-hate relationship with the US, ever since the early days of their influence in WW2. There is a somewhat subtle and historic anti-Americanism in Australia, that continues to this day. Yet at the same time a lot of the US influence has been celebrated as well. People like aspects of US culture - that is the arts mostly - music, film, etc yet popularly it seems to be seen as a corrupt foreign empire of sorts that isn't welcome.

US cultural influence is welcomed, but political and economic influence are usually (and have historically been) greeted with suspicion and mild hostility. It's not as intense as it used to be - even during WW2 in Brisbane people used to seek out Americans and bash them (see the "Battle of Brisbane). As far as the upper class is concerned however it's a different story - as long as they're gaining from US dominance of Australia then they unflinchingly defend and encourage all aspects of it. This goes for whichever power is the dominant one of the day - it was the same during the years of British dominance (in the early 20th century).

That's my quick response anyway, didn't want to make a wall of text so yeah.

[Ned Kelly]

The Australian Labor Party has abandoned Australia's working class.

The Labor Party has been triangulating the right-wingers, much like Clinton triangulated Gingrich and Blair triangulated the Tories.

Now, instead of being influenced by the trade unions and the middle class, Australia's Labor Party, like the New Democrats and Britain's New Labor, have capitulated to high-finance (I.e. Bankers, Speculators and Hedge Fund Managers).

A Workingman's Labor Party would never be headed by a man that brags about having slashed public service jobs during his tenure as an adviser to Queensland.

With Labor being center-right on the traditional spectrum, the Green Party is Australia's last remaining center-left party and even they've been willing to sacrifice progress in the name of cooperation with Labor.

Richard, the Labor Party never were a 'workingmans' party, they have always been more comparable to European 'Liberal' parties in terms of policy.

[OHumanista]

Indeed labor on australia already started bad and went worse. (as opposed to others which started a lot better)
In any case welcome.